January 19, 2023
Another Three Days of Train: From Uzbekistan to Volgograd, Russiaby Randi / January 22, 2018
After our long, challenging train journey from Uzbekistan, we arrived in the city of Volgograd, in the southwest of Russia, I mean it’s roughly in that blobular section of the biggest most endless landmass that is old country. That’s right, after almost three months, after traveling through Mongolia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, we made our way back to Mother Russia. And we were overjoyed to be back in a place where we sort of knew the language, and where we could reunite with the trappings of modernity, and where I could eat at an actual vegan restaurant. But I didn’t realize how important a city Volgograd is, in critical and meaningful ways far beyond its current offerings of comfort for my spoiled behind, and I was and remain in awe of its history. I initially wanted to come here just to see the incredible, enormous statue pictured at left (or above if you’re on your phone), but there’s so, so much more to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad. We had a lovely few days here, learning more than I ever learned in school about World War II, exploring what the city has to offer today, and finding all the vegan food for me to eat.
It’s not an accident that I’m choosing to lead with this picture of a tank on the Volga river. Volgograd needs you to know two things, right off the bat: It was the site of one of the most important battles in history, and the most tragic, and also it is on the Volga river get it that’s what its name means (bye Stalin!) So I knew one of these. I’m sorry, universe. If you are like my husband, you are horrified that I didn’t know about Volgograd’s role in World War II. I mean I knew about the Battle of Stalingrad, in the sense that I knew it was a thing that happened, but I didn’t know the details: that it was the largest and bloodiest (almost two million casualties) battle in the history of warfare. I didn’t know how essential it was to the war, how crucial it was to what came next. And this is because I was educated in American public school, where you learn that America is the best and without us everyone in Europe would be speaking German. And as much as we want to believe that the Americans saved WW2, it really was the Russians who won it and lost the most. They sacrificed so much, so many of their people and so much of their world, and this is the truth in Volgograd.
A part of a preserved/destroyed building from the war, called Pavlov’s House. It was any old apartment building, but Soviet soldiers stayed inside for a 60 day siege, holding it against the German forces. The house was important to hold for its position to a vital bank of the Volga. Germans attacked several times every day. For 60 days! Can you even imagine what this was like? War is AWFUL. It’s outside the Panorama Museum (an easier reference than the State Historical and Memorial Preserve the Battle of Stalingrad
In 1942, Stalin et al. assumed that the Nazis would focus their efforts on Moscow but then they surprised everyone (those tricky Nazis) by attacking the south of the Soviet Union. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted more than five months, as the Soviet Union fought the Nazis for control of the city. Armies fought in the streets, at extremely close range, facing the challenge of urban warfare. A main objective was to destroy the city’s industrial capacity, but they pretty much just destroyed the city full stop. Well, except for the Stalingrad Tractor company, which continued making tanks until the Germans actually physically entered the factory. Air bombings added to the onslaught, killing many civilians and nearly leveling the entire city. Stalin refused to evacuate the civilians (did anyone ask him why) (well someone said he wanted the civilians to stay so that people would fight harder to protect them, which is super f-ed up) so 400,000 regular joes (/ivans) were trapped in the city during the offensive. Some were taken to Germany as slave workers, some fled, a few ended up being evacuated, but many were killed, and only 10,000-60,000 were left out of that original 400K after the battle ended in February 1943. All civilians in the city during the battle were put to work building fortifications and whatever else they could contribute. And the Soviets famously ordered anyone strong enough to hold a rifle to fight. In fact, the initial defense of the city fell to a group of young female volunteers making up the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment. When they found out they had been fighting a group of girls, the Nazis were pisssssed! They hate girls!
The Flour Mill in Stalingrad, preserved in its destruction as a monument to the battle. I love that there is now a statue of children dancing in front of it. It’s called the Barmaley fountain, informally, and features six children dancing around a CROCODILE. There are two in the city (neither the original), called Barmaley because of the old fairytale poem about a pirate villain and crocodiles that bite people? I think it’s saying to be cautious?
So you can see it was terrible. It’s one thing when war is waged in fields like in movies making it seem all heroic. It’s completely different in a city, even more chaotic and hideous than usual. Fighting filled every street, every building and every house. Even the sewers were filled with fighting. And remember how many civilians were here. No wonder old Russian ladies are stereotyped as being tough as nails. They were! And while it’s true that the Russians deserve a lot of credit for their helping to win WWII and all they sacrificed, Stalin was, well, Stalin, and there was a great deal of ‘trimming the ranks’ – executing any Red Army soldiers who defected or fell out of line – like, even literally, falling out of formation. Scary times. Let’s not having another world war guys.
To learn all about this battle and what it meant for the war, your first order of business in Volgs is to go to the Museum Panorama about the Battle of Stalingrad – official name, I am finding, the State Historical and Memorial Preserve the Battle of Stalingrad. I feel like some punctuation would be good there but here we are. The museum was wonderful, sad but wonderful. The worst part about it was that they checked my water bottle EYE ROLL. It’s worth it to do the audio tour, not because the audio is that great but because the signage is lacking. It was actually kind of hard to find the numbers on the exhibits, but it became like a scavenger hunt! Fun! Note that the last audioguide clues are all the way at the top of the museum, up stairs, and not marked with like ‘exhibit continues up here’ signs or anything. I had no idea about it but husband did, luckily, so we made our way up and were rewarded with these gorgeous murals depicting the battle. That’s why it’s called the panorama museum – this last incredible part was the panorama.
I also really enjoyed this sculpture of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, the three amigos! The three musketeers! The three…tenors.
sad that Darkest Hour didn’t have any Stalin craziness. They did have Roosevelt on the phone, declining any help. oops.
MAP OF WAR
MORE MAP OF WAR
war stuff
My favorite part, of course, was the amazing anti-Nazi posters that were all over the museum and seemingly all over Russia (they REALS hate Nazis, good job Ruskies) that we all need to print out and post all over America. And England. And everywhere apparently! What a time!
SMASH THAT NAZI WITH YOUR AX!
HAHA POOR LITTLE CRYING HITLER BABUSHKA PEEP THIS STEPHEN MILLER
THIS ONE BELOW OH MY GOD IT TRANSLATES AS ‘PARTISANS: RETALIATE WITHOUT MERCY’ WHAAAAAAAT.
Because the war defines so much of the city, there are memorials everywhere. I don’t know all the details for them, but they all looked appropriately serious.
I loved this super old tree
There are also lots of statues around the city not directly tied to the war. As I mentioned above in the caption for the Flour Mill picture, they love seeing children dance around a crocodile – the so-called Barmaley fountain is also found in front of the train station, which was a very fun first sight for us when we disembarked! Crocodiles and children, the best dancing pair since Fred and Ginger. And of course, because we were in a town east of Poland, we found the requisite Lenin statue.
But like I said in the beginning, we had originally come for one purpose – to see the gigantic The Motherland Calls statue. We had to see the big fucking thing! I knew it was big and I knew it was a fucking thing, but when we spotted it from our train window, we realized oh, it’s really forking big.
view from our train
The Motherland Calls is a statue commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad (what else would it be for!). It was designed by two men, named Yevgeny Vuchetich and Nikolai Nikitin (Tommy Thomas), which I like because they designed the largest statue of a woman in the world which means maybe they are two of the few men who aren’t scared of women. It was once the largest statue in the world period (haha) (get it) (it’s funny because women get periods) but now it’s just the largest statute in Europe (*just*) which is still pretty much the world that matters, can’t count Dubai and stuff because all they do with their time is literally try to build the tallest things. Regardless of how its size measures up to the rest of the world’s big ass statues, TMC is BY FAR the most badass statue ever and I’m obsessed with it. SO BAD ASS. (By the way, if you haven’t watched this Finnish comedian’s take on the word ass yet, you should. He points out the very interesting fact that when you add ‘ass’ after a word like ‘stupid’, it is a bad thing, but when you add it after ‘bad’ like I just did, it makes it a great thing. whaaaat.)
The statue was modeled after a real person, named Valetina Izotova, which is SO cool. I hope she was cool.
who’s this knucklehead
There are 200 steps leading up the hill to the monument itself, representing each day of the horrific Battle. They are lined with walls featuring pretty remarkable reliefs.
On the hill beneath the statue are lots of gravestones for various military personnel, and next to it is a hall with the Eternal Flame, another thing every Russian town has in addition to the bust of Lenin. The walls are covered with the lists of names of those who were lost in the war, I assume. When we arrived, they were having a moment of silence and it was quite moving. Many armed soldiers were guarding the flame, more than usual because this was a really important place, an entire hall of a war memorial, but how much must it suck to get assigned to this kind of position, just standing there at attention all day and watching all the doofy tourists take selfies.
The Volgs had already won me over before we got to the Badass Mother, but considering this is all I originally (thought I) wanted to see, I was not disappointed. We need more gigantic statues of women. Maybe that’s what can take the place of all the confederate ones.
Volgograd had incredible history and sights and some pretty good food too! I was so eager to get to the all vegan restaurant and shop Mirnaya Eda (Peaceful Meal), and while it was a little tricky to find, it was worth it. Even if the food sucked it would have been worth it – my first all vegan place in so long! – but luckily it did not suck.
I was a little overwhelmed with all the choice, when I had to read everything in Russian and then by the time I deciphered one and moved on to the next I forgot what came before so I couldn’t compare and contrast and it was very stressful! I chose a salad and a wrap, and they were both good but a little weird! The salad was covered in chia goop, a little strange, no? It was herby chia goop like a thick dressing but chia goop nonetheless. I love chia seeds and pudding but it was weird as a salad dressing. I was still psyched for veggies though! Likewise, the wrap was a little of because it was full of all hot cooked soupy veggies, which is not the usual either. But still good and yay veggies.
sorry for this picture I forgot the word for knife
The best part of Mirnaya Eda is that it’s an entirely vegan shoppe too! They have tons of fun sounding products, from milks and granolas to cheeses and faux meats. They have a big case of desserts too. I would have bought stuff but I didn’t want to be carrying stuff until home, and I didn’t need emergency supplies any longer now that we were back in European cities.
Honestly my favorite food in Volgograd was this cafeteria-style place in a very cool, cosmopolitan area. There’s a bunch of dishes behind a glass case and you just point to which things you want. Because there’s so much choice, there’s bound to be a lot of vegan-friendly options. And it’s so super cheap. We were eager to try a lot of dishes too, so these types of places are the best for that. We chose a nice one called Chaste Est, which we entered even though the guy pictured outside on the window looked just like the devil incarnate Paul Ryan. Yeesh.
DOESN’T IT
all my fave Russian foods! Kasha, broccoli, beans, and cabbage-y salad!
To celebrate getting through central Asia and all these insane train journeys, we stayed at the Hotel Volgograd, which was super lovely. It’s a great location for walking everywhere and for catching the bus to the Motherland Calls monument. It was built in 1890 and used for a variety of historic purposes. And the room was beautiful, clean, with a comfortable bed. The staff was great too. I called down when we checked in for an extra robe (fluffy white terrycloth hotel robes are my favorite) but they had no idea what I was saying so soon a maid arrived with an extra of every single bathroom amenity just to cover all the bases – shower towel, handtowel, bathmat, toothbrush, combs, soap, shampoos, slippers, and a bathrobe. It was really funny.
not a great picture and I wish I took a pic of the gorgeous lobby but alas
So Volgograd was a great stop and I’m so glad we fit a few days into our schedule. It has such important history that could have destroyed it forever but it has come a long way to be a pleasant, modern city with great sight and a great vibe.
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The Train to Chengdu: THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT
August 9-10
Dear little baby laptop diary,
Dear little baby laptop diary,
Today, August 9, is our third year anniversary! No not you I don’t even know you! Z and I got married three years ago today! Yay for us! Happy anniversary! Unfortunately, our meticulous schedule has us departing on a 26-hour train today,from Guilin (we had to get a car back there from Yangshuo for the station) to Chengdu. Not the most typical way to celebrate the occasion, but we are on an adventure. Because of this special day – but really because the last few trains have been abysmal experiences – we booked out the entire cabin for the first time. The ticket booker we used said they buy the other beds very often for people who want it to themselves, and they buy the other two beds as children’s tickets (so they cost less), for fake children. Or, as we were hysterical to see the agents refer to them as, “ghost children”. They book the kids’ tickets under fake names, so we were excited to see what fun Chinese names our fake children got.
The tickets are issued to both of our full names plus “Junior”. Of course. But still funny!
Let’s hope this actually works and they don’t try to resell the two beds in here, because guess what guys, this train most resembles the last shitshow, to Guilin (when we 2 extra bodies (children) (not the ghost kind)), but it is EVEN WORSE. It’s like someone said, “Give me the oldest train carriages you have for this route and let me make it even shittier!” I know every single time I’m like, hey baby laptop, this train is EVEN WORSE than the last one, and the people reading are probably rolling their eyes like how is that possible, but somehow it really is the worst yet. Since that gorgeous St. Petey to Moscow special sleeper, we’ve gone slowly down the ladder of quality and cleanliness, with few exceptions on the straight slope down. I read my old diary entries on our early Russian Trans-Siberian trains and want to punch myself in the face for thinking that wasn’t the height of luxury and being such a brat about it. (We have to go back through Russia to enter Europe from the ‘stans later so I’m actually excited to sleep on a Russian train again. I KNOW.) Nothing in here has been cleaned since I don’t know the previous dynasty. The walls are stained to a brownish mix of age, dirt, and who knows what else; the sheets are stained and full of stranger hair; it reeks of smoke – which is usual, but it also reeks of something mixed with smoke. We can’t pinpoint the specific stench, but it is NOT PLEASANT. I believe it’s the smell you get when decades and decades of Chinese people sleep, live, and eat weird smelling food in tiny compartments that never get cleaned. It’s pretty bad. It’s also freezing – the air is on super high and we can’t control it – so we are shibbering, and icked out. I mean just look, even one of the nets on the wall has lost the will to live:
it’s like the hallway from The Shining
oh man I can still smell it
The toilets are insane. Similar to the last train (when I shared pictures; you’re welcome) but dirtier, ickier. And the sink room is the same, except for one crucial difference – a pipe is broken, apparently, because the water drains…out onto the floor from below. Like, the used dirty sink water is just draining through the sinkhole and onto the floor. Including water spat out from tooth brushing. So if you want to use the sink WHICH I DO, you need to watch the water level on the floor so it doesn’t pass your shoes and touch skin ahhhhh ewwwww.
I can’t imagine what this would be like with other people in here and I hope I don’t have to.
Since we had to drive from Yangshuo back to Guilin to catch this 12:30pm ish train, we left at 9:30am ish today to begin our journey, and we are supposed to arrive in Chengdu at 2pm tomorrow. So, we needed an entire day’s worth of food for today plus half a day’s for tomorrow. I had a crapload of leftovers from dinner at Lotus Vegetarian in Yangshuo town last night, three containers actually! So I brought those to eat. Of course, takeout containers in China have been laughable, and the chinese food juice leaked all over the plastic bag it came in, the bigger plastic bag I thought would keep it ‘extra safe’, and my beloved reusable tote that I carried the food in. I have to wash that. So gross. Everything somehow smells like stinky tofu. This whole country smells like stinky tofu. Maybe it’s just stuck inside my nostrils.
I ate as much of the leftovers as I could (leftover noodles do not keep well) and was eager to throw the containers and the bags out asap. It had to go in the sink room, where the only decent sized garbage was. Sorrynotsorry.
At the station, I bought these taro cakes that looked decent, were super cheap, and, eureka, had English ingredients listed so they were accidentally vegan. Let’s compare the picture on the box with the actual product:
This is not what was advertised. They were like little squares of powder, and as soon as you touched it, it completely fell apart into a pool of powder. We still tried to eat them – it was like the G-D CINNAMON CHALLENGE. We were CHOKING on powder. So f-ing weird. I am mad, I want my taro cakes. I don’t know if the company is a pos or the store just like changed the product for shits and giggles? Don’t know man. But now I don’t have a fun dessert for this train!
I just found a black hair under the pillow.
I really have to pee but I don’t want to unlock the door to our little safe place. Also, the toilets are disgusting. We are back to the kind that just empty clear out onto the tracks with a big hole you can actually see through. One of them is broken and stuck in the open position so you can just look through and see track the whole time. Fun times.
Z still feels like crap (we have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow! his turn to need one!), unfortunately, so while I can sort of act amused by all this, he is miserable and I feel terrible. It doesn’t help that I bought those taro things primarily because he loves taro. He will be so disappointed when he wakes up to learn that they are just cubes of baby powder. At least we have good fruit! I have a container of cut up cantaloupe – seriously, the cantaloupe in China is OFF THE CHARTS. I know usually it’s like the fruit added to fruit salads and trays that no one wants and you’re like eww get off my tray, but I’m obsessed here. It’s sooo good. I can’t get enough. I also bought a bunch of grapes outside the station so they are unwashed and I can’t wash them in train water so I didn’t reallllly think that one through (I can save for hotel at least), three very promising black plums (I love plums!), weird little fat short bananas that are actually good and maybe sturdier than the regular ones (not as much bruising!), two apples courtesy of Tea Cozy’s daily fruit supply, and a super fun treat for our anniversary, our absolute favorite thing we discovered in Burma – custard apples! I don’t know how we will manage to eat them unless we just save for hotel, but so fun.
some of our great fruit! hooray for the fruit in China!
For these long disgusting Chinese trains, I really can’t recommend enough that you bring a bar of soap and a handtowel. Just being able to wash your hands well and dry them satisfactorily brings a great deal of peace. At least to me.
Remember on the Russian trains when I complained about how they didn’t refill the soap dispenser for a while?? HAHAHAH I was so stupid! At least in Russia people use soap! I have yet to find a non-hotel bathroom in China – in ALL of China – that has soap. Just no one washes their hands after using the hole. No joke, in restaurants, malls, trains, stations, public toilets, museums, everywhere, I watch as people just rinse ONE hand in the water for a hot second and then shake it off onto everyone they pass as they exit. There is never soap ever. So disgusting. How is disease not more prevalent? Actually I don’t know the stats at all, maybe it is.
I’m drinking a random store-bought iced tea with zero sugar, barely any flavor, and no bubbles. I hope Chengdu has bubble tea near our hotel. We also have two 4-liter jugs of water for this 26 hour journey, plus two 1.5-liter bottles and the rest of my 2-liter bottle I started this morning. Plus two baby sized ones for brushing our teeth. So for drinking that is about 12 liters. Is that enough??
Ooh it’s raining outside! I like it, for some reason. It’s relaxing, to be inside while it’s raining out. Like hey this is a disgusting hole and we already smell of smoke and China’s national stench, stinky tofu, but at least we are inside.
Z’s getting tired of Chinese food, and I am a little bit too. It’s too bad that it’s hitting us now, when we are about to be in Sichuan province (land of our favorite kind of Chinese food! Super spicy Sichuan!), but it’s understandable given we’ve been here for almost 3 weeks. That’s a lot of Chinese food. Chengdu has a good deal of Western food apparently, and a great many HappyCow listings, so I’m excited. Also we changed our hostel booking to a very nice hotel as a treat for our anniversary and to balance out the trains and some of the prior accommodations and really just everything, and I hope it lives up to its billing and our expectations, but honestly after this train, anything could seem nice.
It’s so odd remembering the Russian trains, on the classic Trans-Siberian routes, where yes we were bunking with regular traveling Russians but the carriages were filled with other tourists. In China, this is not the case. Even on the Beijing to Shanghai train, we didn’t see any non-Chinese people! There is a group of white college-looking people on this train, but they are in platzkart (not called that anymore I know but it’s a good word), the open-bed-dorm style class, so everyone we see on our carriage is Chinese. That’s why everyone stares, they’re like ‘wtf are you doing out here, you know this isn’t meant for you to see, right, it’s very dirty’.
Damn it’s really raining hard now, maybe I don’t like it. I’m scared things are going to start leaking through the ceiling onto us, which would be sooo not fun.
When I get back to London, well we get back at night so I am going to shower and then sleep. Omg. My bed. But the next day, I’m going to hopefully welcome a Tesco delivery of groceries (I need to do that online several days before, I guess when we are in Poland! Someone remember to remind me!) and make a green smoothie with Vega powder omg I miss that so much. And then we are going to watch Netflix all day. And get vegan soft-serve at Yorica in Soho! Omg whyyy did I think of that I want that now. And we will get pizza delivered, Z from Pizza Union down the block (well I guess he’ll pick that up) and me from Basilico because they do vegan cheese. Or maybe by then someone else will have vegan cheese! What a world is happening out there!
I have to go tell someone to stop smoking in the hallway.
Ok no one is in the hallway or in the next room, which means the smokers in the carriage-connecting parts – the actually signed smoking section, if you can believe it – are next to the air vent and so it is getting circulated to all of us with the air conditioning. Cool. Cool cool cool cool. Oh wow it started hailing.
My eye is twitching! from stress?
I just had to find the boiling water station – no more having it in every carriage – and it was THROUGH THE OTHER END OF THE NEAREST PLATZKART CARRIAGE. Omg I have never been in platzkart before it is a zoo! First of all, the bunk beds are TRIPLE TIERED! Ah can you imagine having a top bunk that is actually third up? So crazy! And everyone is just standing around the open plan talking and eating and wow it is very loud. Thank goodness we are in rooms with doors, even if they provide more surface area for dirtiness.
An attendant just knocked and I let her in and she looked around and at the empty top bunks and I SCREAMED WE HAVE ALL FOUR and of course she didn’t understand my words but was FREAKED OUT from my tone and my volume and she ran away. Z said what the fuck you just terrified her! But I was so nervous that she was looking to put people in here that I burst nervously into shouting. Oops. But don’t even think about it lady!
Yay she didn’t she was just confused! We showed her the ghost childrens’ tickets and she got it. We are safe. Phew. I am so excited to shower and enjoy Chengdu. PANDAS! Good food! Hotel amenities! See you on the other side.
Cork, Ireland: Lovely Little City with Great Vegan Food
Apparently Cork is a city; I had to look it up because I was about to call it a little town (it’s a quiet village). But it’s a lovely little place and an easy town (village) (city?) to see when visiting a wider swath of Ireland and especially en route to the countryside (which is the best part of Ireland). I was there for the weekend recently to speak at the Indie Cork Film Festival, an annual autumn event that I recommend going to if you’re in town. Hooray for independent film and lovely Irish people who pronounce it ‘fillum’ (LOVES IT). I was also there three years ago (!) during a visit to the countryside of County Cork and so will be mixing information (food) about both trips herein. Try to guess which info is from which trip! What a fun game!
Gray and rainy along the River Lee
First of all, arriving in Cork from a city like London, especially a city with a giant mall-airport like Heathrow, is adorable. Cork airport is a wee bebbeh, which means the lines at the car rental desks will probably include your entire plane. And if you are going out of the city, you need a car. So just budget time accordingly.
It’s about a 15 minute drive from the airport to the city center, which is situated on the River Lee, which separates into two channels for a lil bit and creates an island in the middle (like the Seine!) and that island is the busier city center. On the way you’ll pass the tallest building in the Republic of Ireland, The Elysian. No pictures because driving (I mean I wasn’t driving (‘ohhh, I don’t druive’)but it’s hard to get a picture of something when you are moving). Apparently it’s an apartment building and it has an Aldi on the ground floor, which is nice for people who don’t like going outside. NB that it’s not the tallest building on the island of Ireland; that’s in Belfast, which is Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, which is in trouuuuuble.
Pretty colors on a rare sunny day
So now you know about the tallest building and the independent film festival and the Ile de la Cite but of Ireland and you’ve seen pictures of the river which is very nice to stroll along and so apart from visiting a few cathedrals if you want to, you’re done with Cork! I wasn’t kidding. Tis a babe! It’s a very nice place but it’s not exactly a tourism hot spot. And yet I’ve been twice! And yes once was for work but you know what, it’s a pleasure to be there – especially as a vegan. The vegan scene is getting very exciting there, and so we’re going to talk food for the rest of this post. Coming from Philly and London, two beyond incredible vegan food cities, I might seem a little silly for raving about wee Cork’s wittle vegan scene, but it was able to tick all my boxes (ice cream, healthy food, avocado toast) and more importantly it shows signs of a strong base to keep it active and growing.
First stop, the Quay Co-op.
Okay this picture might be giving away what trip it’s from
The Quay Co-op is a vegetarian institution in Cork, a workers cooperative that was established in 1982 (older than me!) to serve as an alternative community project, a collective effort for feminists, environmentalists, LGBTQ, and other groups and people. Like vegetarians! Now, it’s a vegetarian restaurant, an organic shoppe next door, an in-house bakery, but still a place for radicals and rad people in general to mingle and mix and be. And eat!
Assorted salads my favorite thing!
It was a cold and rainy day (naturally) when we went to the Co-op, so we shared soup and bread (classics really) and two mains. I ordered the mix of all the assorted salads (I love assorted salads!) with two mounds of gravy-covered…mounds (probably a nut roast kinda thing) while Husbo P ordered the shepherd’s pie.
I REALLY LOVE SOUP. AND BREAD.
you know like food mounds
that cauliflower is looking at me because I don’t want it unless it’s making a cheesy sauce
Everything was pretty good! It’s not life-changing food or anything but it’s solid and inexpensive and the people were friendly (like everyone in this town really). This is really the place you go because it’s an institution and the vibe is uplifting.
yay inclusion and nice people!
Next up is one of my faves that I wish was my little local cafe, 143V (which I am going to assume refers to the old-school way of saying ‘I love you’ because that sounds nice). 143V may be a little outside the city center for some visitors (it was pretty close to our hotel though (see below)) but it’s worth a visit. I adore the menu, and it’s just an adorable little place. Although it wasn’t rainy, it was a little chilly so we did that thing of sharing soup. It was a simple tomato soup and it was really good! Then Husbo had the Southern burger, which is a seitan ‘chickun’ burger and it was great. I had the Oasis bowl, which is usually a falafel salad but they were out of falafel but I was actually glad because I just wanted a big ass salad but not really falafel, so I ended up getting a big ass salad (they added beans). All of it was great! They also have a lot of fun drinks like actual iced tea (not from a bottle) and turmeric lattes and smoothies. It’s somewhat slow paced so it’s not for you if you’re in a hurry but it’s lovely to sit in for a while.
We got the vegan brownie to take away, which in true UK & Euro form was more like chocolate cake (because it was cakey) but it tasted good and was saved by the inclusion of a little pot of chocolate sauce to pour over it! Yum!
My other favorite place in Cork was Earth Cafe, which is a restaurant that looks like a big black box of a shipping container was plopped on the bank of the river. It’s very close to Quay Co-op. While the Co-op has that old school veggie vibe, Earth Cafe is very much the millennial cool vegan vibe, with all the trendy hot drinks (including pumpkin spice lattes), jackfruit, and avocado toast. They offered pretty much my perfect brunch, which is a salad bowl of zucchini noodles and spinach and what nots and then a whole bunch of avo toast crammed in. I like!
Also in this vicinity is THE BEST ICE CREAM IN IRELAND, and that’s both in my opinion and what seems to be official word. Casanova Gelato had a line out the door and down the street even though it was coooold.
And there was a doggo in line with us!
HEHE DOG
They usually have a half dozen or so vegan flavors. While most of them were your standard fruit sorbet flavors (NO!), they did have two non-fruit flavors that were spectacular. Okay one was great but one was BEYOND. One of the best ice creams I’ve ever had. The great one was dark chocolate.
The PHUH NOM one was called Wanna be my Vegan and it was a finalist in an ice cream contest! I don’t know what ice cream contest or where or how I get to be a judge but man alive if this was a finalist the winner must have cheated because I can’t imagine anything better. It was a chocolate hazelnut base with like everything good mixed in, like cookies and chocolate and love and hope. AMAZING.
i wove you ice cweam
The cherry on top of all of this is that they had vegan cones – and an assortment of them at that! I obviously picked the charcoal cone because if you offer me charcoal in my food I will take it for no good reason.
My “favorite” food experience in Cork was when it was super late one night and we had to find a restaurant for dinner but because we’re in the British Isles everything closes pretty early (and it was Saturday!). But HappyCow alerted me to a pizza place called Milano that was open still AND had a separate vegan menu! Vegan pizza that wasn’t just regular pizza with no cheese? We’re in! I was excited to see what kind of indie Italian restaurant in this little baby town had a separate vegan pizza menu. And I did not laugh harder the entire trip than when we rolled up to Milano and we both instantly remembered that Milano is simply the Irish name for the chain Pizza Express. DYING! But you know what, it’s still pretty decent! I got the new Vegan Puttanesca pizza that uses marinated jackfruit in the puttanesca sauce. And yeah I might have a Pizza Express literally 4 minutes from home and then on every single block in the city after that but you know what? I’d eat that again.
I know but how good were the rest of the food pictures in this post? wouldn’t be right if they were all good that’s not what you come for
Our last food adventure came from the Malaysian noodle bar Malay Kitchen, which is entirely vegetarian and mostly vegan. We picked up a few noodle dishes and a container of deep fried tofu to eat at the airport before our late night flight. It took forever for them to make our order, but it was pretty good. If you like supes greasy noodles like your favorite cheap counter service, then you’ll love this.
On our recent trip, we stayed (courtesy of the fillum fest, a-thank you) at the very nice Hotel Metropol, which we found utterly hilarious because that’s the name used in all our Russian classes when you learn about hotel words. Gde otel metropol? We said that a lot. It means where is Hotel Metropol. I still find this hilarious. Anyway it was a very nice hotel with a big indoor pool (!!) and both a dry sauna and a steam room! I didn’t have much time to use them all so I did a fast run through of all of them in less than half an hour. It was very fun. Hotel Metropol also has a giant gym for a hotel, and I enjoyed all of it even though I actually did the thing where I hit my headphone cord when I was on the treadmill and my phone went flying (it’s okay!) and I stopped the treadmill to go get it but I started walking back before the track came to a complete stop so then I went flying and fell kind of simultaneously if that’s possible and I have a big bruise on my calf but I’m okay and my phone was okay and the dozen or so people in the gym with me did the respectable thing of pretending they didn’t see anything.
The hotel had a water jug and green apples for the taking and big fluffy white bathrobes for the wearing, which I did because that’s my favorite thing about hotels.
This apple’s sticker says “I never fall far from the tree” lololol A TALKING APPLE |
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So that’s my time in Cork! It’s a very nice city with not too much to do but it makes a great stopping point when you are visiting the countryside. And that’s really the thing you do in Ireland; you don’t go for the cities. We will talk about the beauty that you do go for in the next post!
